FINAL
ESSAY GUIDELINES
Follow
these guidelines in preparing your take-home essays:
1. PAPERS SHOULD BE PREPARED AS WORD DOCUMENTS
(OR IN RTF FORMAT). THE FILENAME SHOULD
BEGIN WITH YOUR LAST NAME. PAPERS SHOULD
BE SUBMITTED TO THE PHIL 437 ELECTRONIC DROP BOX. THERE IS A LINK TO THE DROP BOX ON THE PHIL 437
WEB PAGE. Papers should be no more than
1500 words, not including footnotes. Although
papers are evaluated chiefly on their philosophical merits, grammar, spelling,
and diction will also be evaluated. You
are expected to express your thoughts in clear, grammatical, English sentences.
2. NON-TECHNICAL INTRODUCTION. Your paper should begin with a non-technical
introduction to the problem you will discuss.
You can refer to other philosophers after you set up the problem.
3. STRUCTURE OF THE PAPER. In your paper, you will be asked to
critically discuss one or more issues in Hume's Treatise. Make sure you carefully explain Hume's
position before you criticize it. Always
consider how Hume might reply to your criticisms.
4. CONCLUSION.
End your paper with a conclusion that you think is supported by the
preceding arguments.
5. CITE FULLY AND ACCURATELY. Make sure you accurately state the position
of any author you discuss. Any time you
quote an author OR ATTRIBUTE A PROPOSITION to an author, the quotation or
attribution must be supported by a citation to the text, with page
numbers. YOU MAY NOT CITE ME AS AN
AUTHORITY ON WHAT AN AUTHOR SAYS (UNLESS I AM THE AUTHOR!). YOU MUST CITE THE AUTHOR HIM/HERSELF. Where the reference is to a text in the
assigned readings, it is sufficient to provide page references in parentheses
immediately after the quotation or attribution.
In all other cases, provide a full bibliographic reference in a footnote
or endnote. The page limit on the paper
applies to the text of the paper only.
Footnotes are free.
6. TO SHOW THAT YOU UNDERSTAND AN AUTHOR'S
POSITION, IT IS NOT SUFFICIENT TO SIMPLY PARROT THE AUTHOR. Where you quote the author, make sure you
explain in your own words the significance of the quoted material. It is often helpful to use your own examples
to clarify the views of the author you are discussing.
7.
USE CARE IN INTERPRETING AN AUTHOR, PARTICULARLY SOMEONE YOU DISAGREE
WITH. If on your interpretation of an
author, the author either is inconsistent or has made an obvious error of
reasoning, begin by assuming that you have misinterpreted the author. Reread the relevant passages carefully to see
if you can put together a consistent position that is not obviously
erroneous.
8. CAREFULLY DISTINGUISH VIEWS THAT YOU CLAIM AN
AUTHOR HOLDS FROM VIEWS THAT YOU CLAIM THE AUTHOR SHOULD HOLD OR IS COMMITTED
TO HOLDING. Claims that an author holds
a particular view must be supported with cites to the text. But claims that an author should hold or is
committed to holding a particular view must be supported with relevant
arguments, in addition to cites to the text.
9.
USE LABELS. In your paper, you will
typically have to distinguish between a number of different theses or
positions. It is often useful to give
names or labels to the various theses or positions (e.g., After explaining
Hume's account of causation in terms of constant conjunction, you might refer
to the account as the constant
conjunction account of causation or as CC
for short. Whenever you use a label,
always clearly state what the label refers to.
10. USE EXAMPLES.
In philosophy, it is easy to get lost in a discussion of abstract ideas.
You should not feel that you understand an author's view unless you can explain
how it applies to relevant examples. In
your paper, you should not deal entirely in abstractions. You should try to develop one or more
examples which (perhaps with some variations) can be used to illustrate the
main issues in the paper.
11. AVOID PLAGIARISM. Whenever you turn in any assignment in this
course, the understanding is that what you are turning in is your own original
work, except to the extent that you explicitly credit others for their
contributions. You have an obligation to avoid even the appearance of
impropriety, by always attributing any argument or idea that you have borrowed,
even if you have modified it, to its source.
The source may be written or oral.
For example, if an argument was suggested by a fellow student, include
that information in a footnote.
STYLISTIC
SUGGESTIONS
(including
some adopted from Professor BonJour)
1. Make sure that you express
yourself in complete sentences. Each
sentence must contain, at a minimum, a subject and a predicate in grammatical
agreement that make sense together.
2.
A common mistake is sentences that run on too long. Two or more gramatically
complete sentences should be separated by a period, not a comma. If you want to link them more closely, you
can use a semi-colon, or a comma and a conjunction (e.g., "and" or
"but). Other things being equal,
two short sentences are better than one longer sentence.
3.
Check the meanings and spellings of all words that you are not sure of. It is recommended that you use a computer
spelling checker before printing your final draft.
4.
Some people believe that really good philosophy must be very deep, and
thus hard to understand. You will not be
rewarded for such writing in this course. Your goal should be to make your papers as
clear, as unambiguous, and as easy to understand as the subject matter
allows. A good way to test for awkward
constructions as well as for sense is to read your paper aloud to someone else,
or even just to yourself. You may also
have it read by one of the tutors in the